


Traditions

by Alifredson



Series: Together Again [8]
Category: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Power Rangers
Genre: F/M, Friendsgiving, Holidays, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:55:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27727133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alifredson/pseuds/Alifredson
Summary: Over the last few years, Kim's collected a little party of Rangers with no where else to go on Thanksgiving. This year, Tommy joins them.
Relationships: Aisha Campbell/Rocky DeSantos, Kimberly Hart/Tommy Oliver
Series: Together Again [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1509686
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	Traditions

**Author's Note:**

> This morning, I had a video call with my dad and siblings to celebrate our favorite Thanksgiving tradition together- listening to Alice's Restaurant Massacree by Arlo Guthrie. And then I sat down, inspired to write this. 
> 
> Shout out to Philadelphia, PA.

“Are you sure you don’t want some help?” Kim asked Rocky as she closed the top of the coffee maker and turned it on. She, Rocky, and Aisha had made it through two pots already that morning, but with Zack just stumbling downstairs and Tommy still asleep, she figured another pot was probably necessary. _I should get a larger pot for next year_ , Kim thought.

“I do this every day, Kim,” Rocky said in response, cracking another egg into a bowl.

“Yeah, so shouldn’t you get a break today?”

Rocky shrugged. “I like making everyone breakfast.”

Kim rolled her eyes but left him to it when she saw Aisha heading towards the basement door. “Give me like thirty minutes, ‘Sha, and I’ll help bring them up.”

“I can start.”

“Don’t you dare. Go sit down. We have plenty of time to bring up the boxes.”

Aisha groaned and sat herself down at Kim’s kitchen table across from Zack. “Has Tommy gotten up yet?”

“Nope.” Kim tried not to sound worried, but she was. It was his first major holiday without his parents, and she knew that Thanksgiving had always been a favorite of his father’s.

“Someone should wake him up.” Rocky said. “The pancakes are about done, and the eggs will take no time at all.”

“Coffee,” Zack moaned. Kim looked over and saw that the pot was still only half full.

“All you, Kim.” Aisha motioned vaguely towards the stairs.

“Alright.” Kim trudged up the stairs. She’d been hoping to avoid this, hoping that he’d just come downstairs himself as the others had. Kim took a quiet breath in front of the guest room door before knocking.

“Come in.”

Kim opened the door to find Tommy dressed, sitting on the edge of the made bed, with his shoulders hunched over. He looked defeated.

“Hey.” Thoughts of telling him he should come downstairs for breakfast flew away at the sight of him. Kim was drawn to him. Always had been, and probably would be forever, she figured. She found herself sitting next to him on the bed, putting her hand comfortingly between his shoulder blades. “You okay?”

Tommy just shrugged. Kim started absently rubbing his back. “Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes. There’s coffee downstairs,” Kim told him, remembering why she’d come looking for him in the first place.

“Thanks. I’ll be down in a while. Something I have to do first.” Tommy patted an old cassette player next to him and glanced at the alarm clock Kim had put in the room when she’d first furnished it.

“What’ve you got to do?”

“Family tradition. I don’t want to give it up just yet.”

“Well, we’re all about preserving the family traditions here.” Kim gestured towards the door and the rest of the house beyond. “That’s why we all get together every year- so we can celebrate our traditions with other people, so we don’t lose them.”

“This one’s long.”

“Tommy, Aisha is going to make us decorate the entire house for Christmas while we all still feel like falling into food comas. It’s going to take hours. We can celebrate your tradition too.” When Tommy didn’t respond she added, “unless you’d rather be on your own with it.”

“No, if you guys don’t mind, it would be nice not to be alone. That’s what all of us coming here was about anyway, right? Not being alone on Thanksgiving?”

“Yeah.” Kim thought back. Six years ago, this tradition had started with just her and Rocky. She was estranged from her father and her mother was in France, so she’d become accustomed to doing nothing on Thanksgiving in the intervening years since she’d moved away from Angel Grove. When Rocky’s grandmother, who had raised him, had died, Kim had invited him to spend the holiday with her. Then, Aisha had come back from Africa two years later and said that the plane ticket from the east coast to California and back again just wasn’t worth it when Christmas was right around the corner. And so, Aisha had joined them. Then, the year after that, Zack had asked Kim if he could join them since his family didn’t recognize Thanksgiving with much fanfare and he’d not seen her in a while. Zack had been coming for three years now.

And now Tommy was joining them, after his father had died of a stroke in February and his mother of cancer in April. Just six weeks apart.

“So, what’s the tradition we’re celebrating?” Kim asked, trying to sound upbeat.

“We listen to this song every year at 9AM.” Kim glanced at the clock- in six minutes then. “It’s not _our_ tradition, per se. We picked it up when I was younger from the city we were living near at the time. It was before my dad left the Navy. We lived outside of Philadelphia for four years- second grade to sixth grade. Every year, this one radio station played this song at 9AM and said how it was a Thanksgiving tradition. So, we’d all sit next to the radio in the dining room and listen to it and sing along at the end. The last year there, we knew we were going to move right before Christmas, Dad taped it, so we’d have it.” Tommy patted the cassette player again.

“Well, we’d be glad to listen to it with you. We should get it downstairs so we can hook it up to some speakers. Is this a thing where we should have all of our attention on it, or can we eat and listen?”

“We can eat and listen,” Tommy said with a small smile. “My mom was usually cooking during it.”

__________

Kim bit back a giggle watching Rocky bob up and down while swaying back and forth to the folky guitar in the song as he also fed himself. As expected, everyone had been perfectly willing to accommodate Tommy’s family tradition of listening to this song, even if it was almost twenty minutes long.

Kim looked over at Tommy, sitting to her left. He was smiling for the first time since he’d shown up the evening before. He made eye contact with her briefly and smiled a little wider before turning back to the table at large. “It’s almost the end. When the chorus comes back around, we have to sing along with it.”

Tommy’s voice was the loudest and surest. “You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant. Excepting Alice.” Kim swayed back and forth with the others; they’d managed to get into a rhythm with the song and each other. “You can get anything you want. At Alice’s Restaurant. Walk right in it’s around the back.” She felt a hand grab hers and realized it was Tommy. She squeezed his hand back and through that even with the bright smile, it might be tears she saw gathering in the corners of his eyes. “Just a half-a-mile from the railroad track. You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant.”

_La-da-da-da-da-da-da-da at Alice’s Restaurant._

__________

After they’d sat and talked and ate for a while, Kim insisted that the others go and indulge in another of Rocky’s favorite traditions, watching Thanksgiving Day parades. He would switch between the local parade and Macy’s and back again anytime the one he was watching hit a commercial break. Kim could hear Aisha complain when he changed it away from the Macy’s parade, “Rocky, turn that back on! The Rockettes are supposed to be up soon!”

“Yeah, man. Put it back. Santa’s coming soon!” Zack agreed.

Kim jumped when she felt a hand on her lower back. “Hey,” Tommy said, appearing next to her. “I can dry.” He picked up a towel and began drying off the pots and pans that Kim had already scrubbed clean. “I just wanted to say thanks for earlier and for having me, all of us, over today. I was dreading Thanksgiving this year. It’s always been my dad’s favorite.”

“I’m so sorry, Tommy.” She was up to her elbows in soapy water, so she just leaned in a little closer to him, intending to just rest her head against his shoulder for a moment as a show of comfort and support. He leaned his cheek against the crown of her head, though, so she let herself stay for a few moments longer than was strictly platonic.

She pulled away first and when she looked over at him, she saw him wipe his eyes on the sleeve of his shirt. “It helps, being around all of you guys.”

She turned back to the sink full of dishes to give him a moment to collect himself.

“So, what other traditions do we celebrate?” He asked after a while.

“We do dinner at 4, which was like, everyone’s tradition, more or less. All of the food is pretty much from Rocky’s family, except the chicken croquettes which is from my Uncle Steve, and the bourbon and chocolate pecan pie, which is from Aisha’s grandma. Then Zack’s family watches football in the evening and Aisha’s mom decorates the house for Christmas as soon as dishes are done, so we do both at the same time.”

“Ah, so those are the boxes she’s insisting need to be brought upstairs?”

“Yep.”

“I thought you weren’t supposed to decorate until tomorrow?” Tommy asked.

“Yeah, that’s what I always heard too, but Aisha’s mom always shops all day Friday and shows up as soon as the stores open, so she decorates early. Aisha and I will go hit a few stores at like six or seven AM and have the rest of the day to relax, but we still keep up that tradition.”

“Do the other two not go shopping?”

“Nah. Rocky’s been halfway done shopping since the beginning of last month, so he avoids the crowds. Zack keeps saying he’s going to come with us, but he always refuses to get up when we go to wake him.”

“I’d go with you. I haven’t done any Christmas shopping yet.”

__________

Kim accepted a mug of hot tea from Tommy as he sat next to her on the sofa. Zack was passed out in the recliner and had been for a good two hours. Aisha and Rocky were snuggled up in front of the fireplace across the room with their heads close together and their voices low.

“Thanks.” She wrapped both hands around the mug.

“Thanks for having me over. Today was nice.”

Kim shrugged. “We’ve become a collection of Rangers without anywhere else to go on Thanksgiving.”

“So, I can come again next year? I promise to be more festive than I was this morning.” 

“Of course, you can. You’re always welcome, Tommy.”

They lapsed into silence, looking up at the artificial tree they had decorated earlier in the evening. Aisha had insisted that once it had been decorated that they turn out the other lights in the living room so they could enjoy the multi-colored lights.

“I miss you,” Tommy whispered to her after a while.

“I miss you too.”

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her back into his chest.

“Happy Thanksgiving, Kim.”

“Happy Thanksgiving, Handsome.”

__________

Aisha announced not long after that it was time for everyone to go up to bed so that shopping could happen early. Kim was the last upstairs, making sure the doors were locked, lights were all off, and all the still to be washed dishes made it to the kitchen.

Upstairs, Zack’s door was closed over, as was Rocky and Aisha’s, although the latter’s light was still on. Tommy had taken up the last room, closest to her own. His door was still open, and he was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame.

“Hey,” he said quietly, smiling shyly at her.

“Hey, you alright?”

“Yeah. I… uh… I was just thinking.”

“About?”

Tommy looked down at his feet and scratched at his neck. “It’s just that I haven’t really been sleeping well since my mom’s funeral. I was wondering if maybe you’d lay with me?”

“Yeah,” Kim said feeling warm all over. “Would you rather be in there or my room?”

Tommy smiled brightly at her.

__________

Kim hummed Christmas carols as she wiped flour off the kitchen counter; she’d never quite managed to be a neat cook. It was the first time in years that she was looking forward to Christmas. For the last several years, Christmas had consisted of waking up late in the morning to open gifts by herself sent to her by friends and her mom. Eating cookies by herself instead of real food all day. Then, every year, she fell asleep watching _It’s a Wonderful Life._

This year was different. Finally.

Kim checked the clock on the microwave. Tommy had said he’d arrive sometime after 6PM and it was now 5:45. She didn’t have much time, even with the likelihood that traffic on the turnpike would be bad this with all the Christmas Eve travel.

Kim washed her hands in the kitchen sink and dried them before grabbing scissors and tape out of the junk drawer before hurrying out to the living room.

She still had a few gifts to wrap for her boyfriend before he got there. 


End file.
